New guy

"Can you call me, please, Sam?  I can't find my wine.  I think they may have confiscated it." 

Mom's voice on the voicemail, confused, irritated.  It came in while I was doing therapy so I called her after an hour or so.  Mom suspects I do this, but she can't prove it.

"You have wine, Mom.   In Marion Assisted Living places have to keep the wine in the nursing station."

"I don't want to live here.  I want to go back to Wichita.  I want a second opinion!"

She hates this place.  She wants to go back to her house, her woody back yard garden, the goofy neighbors and all the Latino people walking around.  There were little guys on backwards tricycles with coolers between the front wheels ringing bells and selling Mexican ices.  She had a big deep porch and lilacs and peonies that came from Aunt Zella.

I'll go over tomorrow and visit or take her out and she'll be pleasant and tentative, trying to remember what she was mad at me about.  Trying to remember what the next thing was going to be.

I don't want a second opinion, I want a different one.

Once, when I was still miserably married to Nancy I was sitting on the front porch, contemplating divorce, entropy and dandelions.  There were a bunch of 10 year old boys from the neighborhood playing army and one by one they all died horrible dramatic deaths, until finally they were all lying across several late July evening front lawns.  Sweaty little corpses, still warm, holding perfectly still.

After a little while, one boy began to stir.  He had a crew cut and a striped shirt and he raised his head up and looked around him.

"I'm a new guy, now, okay?" he called.  

That's what I need, I thought.  I need to be a new guy now.

Mom's battle has no tag team mate waiting to give her a rest and she's not going gently into that good night.  She wants a goddamn glass of wine without asking for it.  Not much to ask, now that I think of it.